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IPL (Intermec Printer Language) never specified the length of a label, it relied on the user to format the data properly; if you went over the edge, it would happily print on the next label.

The new PM series printers behave differently. When you define a label size image memory is allocated based on those settings. Anything that falls outside those limits will get chopped off. IPL is now a Fingerprint program that runs on the PM43 so there is a conflict between the two languages on this label size issue.

Here’s the same data sent to a PX (top) and a PM printer (bottom):

This usually won’t be a problem if your labels are set up correctly and don’t run over the edge of the label. However, there’s an IPL command (<SI> L) that’s misnamed “Maximum Label Length” that sets the label length on the PM and PC series running IPL. To quote from the IPL reference manual “Notes: The printer uses this number for detecting media faults. It does not use thisnumber to limit the image size of a format on the label.”

I think mapping this configuration command to set the label length is a bug, but I understand how this could happen. They way to get around this is to implement the “Ignore IPL” commands feature in the PM43.

To get the printer to ignore an IPL command you have to turn on this feature; the easiest way is through the web interface. Sign in as “itadmin” using “pass” as the password and click on the Configure tab, then the Languages link on the left, then IPL, and you’ll see the Commands Ignore pull down in the General Settings:

Enable Commands Ignore and press the Save button.

You can enable this from the front panel menu too. Go into Settings, down arrow to Languages, General Settings, then enable Commands Ignore.

Enabling this will cause the printer to ignore these commands:

<SI> d dark adjust

<SI>g media sensitivity

<SI>c cutter enable/disable

<SI>D end of print skip distance

<SI>F top of form set

<SI>f label rest point

<SI>L maximum label length

<SI>R label retract enable

<SI>r retract distance

<SI>t self strip enable/disable

<SI>W set label width

<SI>X label origin, X Y adjust

These commands are contained in a file named IGNCMDS.CFG in the /home/user/config/ipl folder. You can add any SI command you want ignored here, or you can delete the command that you still want the printer to respond to. Copy this file to your PC using and FTP client, edit it, then copy if back to the same folder.

Note: Loftware normally sent out the maximum label length configuration of 5 inches (<SI>L1000) with their compiled files or Print Server product when sending data to IPL printers. If you see your label length being reset to 5 inches, it’s likely that Lofware is the source of this IPL data string.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Dir command (used to rotate images, text, and barcodes) works differently in the PM and PX series when applied to images. The PX series printer can only rotate an image by 180 degrees but the PM series can rotate images at 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees. Here’s a label that prints an image using all four Dir parameters:

The way around this is to rotate your images (I like IRfanview) ahead of time and print all of your images at Dir 1 and both printer will behave the same.

While we’re on the subject of IRfanview, you can greatly reduce the size of your images by reducing them to 2 bits per pixel. Thermal and thermal transfer printers can only print in black or white, so anything beyond 2 bpp is a waste of space. For example, here’s an image that we had to use in a Fingerprint program:

At 16 bits per pixel this image used 2,718,478 bytes of storage. After conversion to 2 bits per pixel it was only 340,262 bytes, an almost 90% reduction in size with no loss of resolution.

We recently wrote a Fingerprint application for a large snack food manufacturer. The application prompts the user for the item number they want to print and the number of labels. After printing a sample label for approval, the program prints the requested quantity. There are four different label formats, and the data for the label is retreived from a .CSV look up file.

We issue a “PRINT FEED” command for each label; the labels are serialized so each one is unique.

Notice that the printer pauses after each label. On our next release we implemented the command “OPTIMIZE “BATCH” ON” with each of the label formats. According to the manual, this command means that “The program execution will not wait for the printing of the label to be completed, but proceeds executing next label image into the other of the two image buffers as soon as possible.”

The stated goal of GS1 (formerly the UPC Code Council) is to “develop and maintains global standards for business communication”. Their most widely know standard is for barcode labels. Here’s a sample GS1 barcode:

A scanner reading this barcode will output “[C101189010720001501719083110LM123”. The symbology above is Code 128 which has 106 different symbol patterns in it’s character set, three different start characters, three subsets (A,B, and C), and four function characters (FNC1 to FNC4) that are not printable that are used for special functions.

All GS1 barcodes start with a Start C symbol followed by a Function 1 character; scanners are supposed to interpret this a “[C1”, which indicates to the receiving software that the code follows GS1 rules.

The three pairs of characters enclosed in parenthesis are Application Identifiers; they tell the receiving software what type of data follows. Note that the parentheses are in the human readable only, they are not in the bar code itself.

01 – Identifies the following data as a GTIN (Global Trade Identification Number)

17 – indicates an expiration date (YYMMDD)

10 – is a lot number, which is variable length field.

Note that if a variable length field (or more precisely, if the FNC1 is required by the GS1 tables) is in front of another field, a separator character must be used to signal the end of the field. This character can be a FNC1 or and ASCII group separator character (Hex 1D).

GS1 barcodes can also be Datamatrix codes; they follow the same rules as Code 128 except that the first three characters output are “[d2” instead of the “[C1” for Code 128.

I’m in the middle of a couple of these projects, so while the subject is fresh, I’ll note tips.

The PM series printer needs to have device names in lower case, and both the PX and PM series converts everything to upper case by default. The command to turn this off is SYSVAR(43)=1, so you can get the version of the printer and execute this command accordingly:

IF LEFT$(VERSION$(1),2) = “PM” THEN SYSVAR(43) = 1

The VERSION$(1) command returns the printer type: PM43, PX4, etc.

I’m converting a program that runs on a PX series to run on a PM. The users are used to pressing the “<” and “i” key to execute certain functions, but these keys are absent on the PM series. To get around this I copied the less than key image from the /usr/share/ui/images/fpapps folder on the PM43 and copied it into the /home/user/display folder and named it funckey_1.png. I then edited the image with Paint to create a custom “i” key and saved it as funkey_5.png.

Next, I executed the display key function if the printer was a PM series:

The less that and I key map to the F1 and F5 keys, but the display is friendly for the user. Note that the DISPLAY KEY2,0 through 4,0 hides the F2, F3, and F4 keys from the screen.

As I mentioned earlier, the PM series needs device names in lower case, so UART1: becomes uart1: and CONSOLE: becomes console:

Make all of your file names upper case and specify the path to make them compatible with both printers, so it’s /c/MYFILE.TXT.

We use the sound command to put timed delays into our code; a typical command: SOUND 20000,100. This doesn’t work with the PM series, it’s sound command is limited to 4 digits, so use SOUND 0,100 instead, This will run on both printers.

Intermec published a nice document on migrating to the PM series, you can find it here.

If you have images to print on your labels be aware the the DIR command works differently in the PM and PX series. The PM can rotate images in all four directions, the PX only by 180 degrees. The best practice is to use DIR1 on all images on your label and rotate the images themselves with an editor(such as IRFAN) as needed so you images will print out the same on both printers.

One last item that has nothing to do with this subject, but it is a Fingerprint topic. I was doing a program on a PC43 series printer using small cryo labels .5 inches long. After the label printed the label gap came to rest directly over the label sensor and the printer returned an out of media status when I queried it with ?PRSTAT. No start/stop or label length commands could fix this so I used a PRSTAT(8) command instead and waited on a “next label not found error”, a 132 to get around this issue. Saved a project.

Sometimes you need to print labels from a program you are writing. Here’s a few tricks to make that job easier.

You can develop a label format in its native language of IPL, ZPL, Direct Protocol, etc (there’s a bunch of them) but an easier method is to use a design tool, which are available for free from printer manufacturers and capture its output. For Intermec printers you can download Bartender UltraLite from the Honeywell web site here. You’ll need to sign up to get an account and you’ll have to use their download tool, which works with Windows 7 but not 10.

Next, download the appropriate printer driver for your target printer. You can get these from the same Honeywell site or from Seagull Scientific.

Once you have the software and driver installed, use Bartender to design your label:

Print your label to check that it looks the way you want and you can then print your template to disk for later inclusion into your code.

Find the printer driver and open the Printer Properties page. Click on the Port Tab and change the Port to “File”:

Now print your label from Bartender again. A dialog box will pop up asking you for a file name and location to save the output. Once this is done you can open the file with a text editor and look at the data. The label above created this output file:

One thing I can say with confidence about Intermec printers is that they are the most versatile on the market. Intermec printers can run user developed programs and they have a wide variety of add on options.

I recently did a job for a medical manufacturer who wanted to control label printing from a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). They use Bartender to send the label data and needed the printer to print one label each time the PLC fires a relay.

Intermec offers an industrial I/O board for their PX and PM series of printers (1-971143-800 and 270-192-001, respectively) that have 8 sense inputs, 8 optocoupler out ports, and 4 relay ports. The manual is here.

I used a Fingerprint program and an I/O board to connect their PX6 printers to a PLC.

When the program starts it turns on a relay that is used as a “ready” signal to the PLC indicating that it’s ready for a new job.

A fingerprint program then receives label data from Bartender on the Centronics port, filters out unneeded data and writes the label to disk. The program then turns the “ready” relay off, indicating that to the PLC that a job is running.

If an error occurs (out of labels, ribbons, etc.) another relay is closed to flag the PLC of the error condition and the specific error is displayed by the printer for the user’s intervention.

The program monitors one of the sense input ports and prints one label when it detects voltage on that pair (10V to 40V). The setup during testing looked like this:

The industrial I/O board uses a 44 pin high density connector for the inputs and relay pairs. We used the red pair of wires and a 24 volt power supply to simulate the PLC output, the black pair was “ready”, and the white pair was the error indicator. I used a serial port to connect to Bartender because I didn’t have a Centronics port available. We could have used any port, Ethernet, USB, serial, or parallel to receive the label data from Bartender.

Which of these codes is a 2D code? The one on the right is Datamatrix code, a true two dimensional code. The one on the left is PDF417, a stacked linear code; it looks like a two dimensional barcode, but it isn’t.

2D codes store data in both the X and Y coordinates. Linear codes only contain data in one dimension. This is easy to see in a normal linear code.

It doesn’t matter where the scanner goes across the code, data is only encoded in the widths of the bars and spaces. Datamatrix characters are encoded in a matrix of 5 by 5 cells and have to be read by a camera.

Stacked linear codes are really a bunch of small linear barcodes stacked on top of one another. Each row has a row indicator or number, so a 1D scanner such as a laser is capable of reading these codes by sweeping across the code while the decoder keeps track of the row numbers and puts together the final output. Check the specs of your scanner, not all 1D scanners will read PDF417 symbols.